PET Scan

Yesterday I had a PET scan (Positron Emission Tomography) Out of all of the scans I have had this one bothers me hardly at all, the worst part is what is after the scan is over... but we will get to that.

PET scans can be used for lots of things. We are checking to see if my cancer is gone.

What else they can be used to diagnose brain disorders such as Alzheimer's, Epilepsy, Parkinson's disease and other things.

If you would like more information on PET scans this is a nice site

What happens...
the day before... you cant do any exercise, no snow shoveling, no Wii, no treadmill, no gym. a pulled muscle would read as a false positive.

you also have to fast this is to bring your blood sugar down, your BS cannot be too high, or they cant do the test... because the radioactive stuff is in a glucose solution and the cancer cells use the sugar faster than the regular cells so they "glow" from the radioactivity.

Every time you have one there's paperwork... so you need to get there about 20 mins early. then they take you off in a room all by yourself and start and IV line, they test your blood sugar, then they inject you with a radioactive isotope. and hand you a glass of barium to drink. My facility uses blueberry, I have also had raspberry. How much you drink depends on how thick it is. It all depends how much they water it down. Count on it not tasting good either way by the last mouthful you are wondering if you will hold it down.

Then you wait. It seems like forever but its only 45 mins. Then they take you back to the machine.

Where i have mine done the velcro your feet and tummy so you don't move on accident. I actually like this it makes me feel more secure about not falling off the board. and the scan a little bit of you every 5 mins. the last thing they scanned on me was my head area, which is good since i am a touch claustrophobic. byt the time i get my face in the tube i have "talked myself" into how its almost over and i am gonna gbe out in like one song. the radio plays where i get mine done. the music helps.

then you are all done.

Now i told you the worst comes after... well here you go. no small kids no pregnant women, no old people. because you are still radioactive for 24 hours after your scan. I will be untill noon today. you have to flush toilets twice, and speaking of toilets, all that barium you drank? well if you have a slow moving system, do something to speed it up. personally myself i get something greasy to eat after (McDonald's or something) because McDonald's always moves right through me. thus the barium comes out easily. I failed to do this after my first CT scan and well lets just say i would rather do it this way....

I have noticed that my white count dropped after my last PET, so for good measure im going back to my own version of No Raw today just to be on the safe side. that means its a loose version... i stay away from salad bars hospitals, high germ areas and high germ foods. but i will still eat bananas and other peel able fruit. this is my own concoction, not recommended by my doctor. just something i do for me so i wont worry. if my drs office calls me and tells me to go "no raw" that's a whole different diet